


This Song Saved My Life

by 221b_hound



Series: Guitar Man [63]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BAMF John, Gen, Injury, Music, Protective John, Protective Sherlock, Song Lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 05:58:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is missing, and he better damned well not be dead. John has strong opinions on that sort of thing. He'll also gladly throw himself in front of a bullet to make sure Sherlock keeps on breathing. As it happens, Sherlock has strong opinions on that sort of thing, too. Which he would share, if John would just stop making stupid jokes about rock'n'roll saving his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Song Saved My Life

**Author's Note:**

> You know how I said I wasn't going to fanfic during NaNo? Seems I make myself a liar. When I've had a half hour at the end of the day, and since this one was half written to begin with, I've noodled about with it as an unwinding exercise after powering away through the Kitty novel. And since I am impatient, you get it now. The song used here is the one I wrote and posted the other day, [Feels Like Flying](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1036043) \- follow that link to download me singing it a capella if you want to know roughly what it sounds like.
> 
> This story is sort of an answer to [Remember the way I held your hand (under the lamp post and ran)?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/845300): the one in which Sherlock says three little words to his best friend. As of that story, John had not said them to Sherlock, although he demonstrated the sentiment in song and deed. This story also references [Silence and Lullaby](http://archiveofourown.org/works/447567), because it seems I can never let that story go entirely. It's the thing that broke open their reserve and made them who they are in the Guitar Man universe. 
> 
> The title is from the song of the same name by Simple Plan.

“Hey. You. You’re late.”

John stopped trying to edge his way through the mostly empty bar and arranged his face into an expression of gormless enquiry. “Me?”

A beefy, sweaty man with a broken nose and a habitual smoker’s rough voice spoke out of the gloom. “Auditions ended at three. Didn’t you read the fuckin’ poster?”

“It’s not three yet.”

“It’s ten after, moron.”

“Oh. Sorry. Watch must have stopped.”

“Yer brain must have stopped. You wanted to audition for the Wednesday night spot, eh?” The rough voice took on a nasty tone of suspicion.

John lifted the guitar case in his hand in an attempt to deflect that suspicion. “That was the plan, yeah.”

Except, no, it hadn’t been the plan. It had been the _cover story_ for the plan. The _plan_ had been to scout out further clues on the new shipment of designer street drugs coming in from the Ukraine, a run-of-the mill-bit of shadiness that was strangely intertwined with an operation that was funnelling stolen antiquities both into and out of Europe and Asia, along with the occasional fugitive. Tips from the homeless network had led to this skanky bar and the odd number of trucks that came and went bearing large scale amplifiers and crates purporting to contain pianos but which certainly contained nothing of the sort. They contained other things, of course.

The _plan_ , when Sherlock had slipped out in the dark hours of this morning, had been to gather data on those other things, only now John knew what Sherlock had discovered when he left before dawn: that one of their informants, a boy from the homeless network, had gone missing late last night. Cliff Granger, 14 years old.

 _A quick in and out_ , Sherlock had said, _I’ll be back by noon_ , he’d sworn, _and then we can go in under cover of the auditions the bar is holding and be on the spot when the next truck comes in._

But the plan had gone six kinds of sideways when Sherlock hadn’t come home, or texted, or contacted John in any way, so the cover story was now, apparently, the plan. John had waited until only a handful of hopeful musicians were loitering outside, figuring he could claim he was lost or looking for the loo, if necessary. _Goddamned Sherlock and his goddamned plans and his goddamned inability to stick to them._

John stepped out from where he had been creeping towards the back of the bar. “I was looking for the loo…”

“Sounds to me more like you’re _taking_ the piss.” The sweaty manager – one Al Wankey by unfortunate name – scowled at John, who was standing to the side of the small stage, in a tiny area filled with boxes of fliers, broken chairs and mic stands that had permanent droops. “Sounds more to me like you’re just here nosing around where you don’t fuckin’ belong.”

“Nope,” said John, “Audition. Like the flier said.” He drew the folded piece of paper from his pocket and waved it in the air. “I’m a guitarist.” He waggled the guitar case at the man, who looked sceptical.

“Well you better get on that fuckin’ stage and prove it.” Al Wankey was trying very hard to live up to his name, it seemed.

John stepped onto the stage, a small square of black carpet, cigarette burns and beer stains, opened his guitar case and pulled out his Gibson electric guitar. The amp and cords were waiting for him to plug in.

John tried to keep the frustrated scowl from his face. He was _supposed_ to be in the back, taking the rear stairs to the basement to find Sherlock. The detective’s non-return to Baker Street could mean one of many things, and John had to believe that it included at least one of the scenarios in which Sherlock was still alive.

John wished he could just blow off this whole audition, but there was no way he could get downstairs without doing this, now that he’d been spotted. _Fine._ In the previous day’s preliminary recce, they’d at least determined that sound carried to the basement quite easily down the stairs beyond the small stage. Maybe, if Sherlock was still down there, he’d hear the songs and know that John was coming. Maybe Sherlock was waiting for just this, for a signal. Maybe John just had to distract the dreadful Wankey long enough to allow Sherlock to get out on his own. Assuming Sherlock could get out. That he wasn’t….

_Right. Not helping. Stall, Watson. **Play.**_

John put the stomach-churning fear aside, strummed a few chords and fronted up to the microphone.

“This, uh… this is, er, one from…”

“Let’s hope you sing better than you talk, dickhead.”

“Right.” John squared his shoulders, began to pluck out the notes before throwing himself into the chords and finally leaning right into the microphone.

_The shifting sand beneath my feet  
Gave way to solid ground_   
_I push, push_   
_I push against it_   
_Running at the world_

Wankey at least had the decency to look surprised rather than bored. John may have been dressed a bit like a woodwork teacher, but he knew his way around a song.

_The slap and sting  
_ _Feet on the road  
_ _To and not away  
_ _From life  
_ _I’m running at the world_

Luckily, John was an old hand at performing on stage while keeping one eye on trouble in the wings, or in the audience. He shifted into the chorus and felt his neck prickle. Was that a vibration on the stairs, a movement of air, perhaps? _Sherlock?_

_My lungs burn from all this precious air  
_ _This life I nearly missed  
_ _Nearly left unsung  
_ _But I found it, or it found me  
_ _This gift you gave me_

_Sherlock, you had better hear this_ , John was thinking. _You had better be alive to hear this and know I’ve come for you. You had goddamned better be all right_.

_This city at my feet_   
_The life in my lungs_   
_Light in my eyes and blood in my veins_   
_Joy in my heart_   
_On the edge, on the edge_   
_Of the wide, wide world_

And there it was, a movement, furtive and truncated, more a shadow on the curtain marking the offstage area than anything else. A tall, lanky, absolute _pillock_ of a shadow. John was so relieved he felt ill. He nearly fumbled a chord in the second half of the bridge, but picked it up, quick smart. Wankey noticed, though. Of course he did. _Arse_.

_Sometimes even when I’m falling  
_ _It feels like flying  
_ _This gift you gave me  
_ _Stopped me dying_

John powered into the final chorus, letting the sound of the guitar and his own growling voice fill the stage and the space where Wankey sat, glaring at him. At least he had Wankey’s full attention again now, giving time for Sherlock to do… whatever the fuck he was doing.

_My lungs burn from all this precious air  
_ _This life I nearly missed  
_ _Nearly left unsung  
_ _But I found it, or it found me  
_ _This gift you gave me_

And then it all went to hell.

There was the sound of someone stumbling over a broken chair and a small, high voice gasped in the wings at just the wrong moment. Wankey rose sharply, unpleasant face creased in suspicion and anger.

“ _The fuck_ you playing at?”

“I can sing another, if you don’t like that,” suggested John desperately, trying to stay in character, buying time.

“Course I don’t fucking like it. Stay put if you know what’s good for you.” He seemed to be dismissing John as a threat, if not as an annoyance.

_He thinks I really am just a muso._

John tensed. With Plan B also gone six ways sideways, there was nothing for it now but go for Plan C. John didn’t actually have a Plan C. Plan C always meant winging it and almost always ended up in someone bleeding.  A lot. Mostly the other guy. Sometimes him or Sherlock. _Fuck._

Wankey – obviously expecting John to act like a normal civilian and duck for cover – drew a gun, casual as you please, and fired a round into the wings.

At almost the same time, John reached behind him, under his coat for the gun tucked into the back of his jeans.

There was a scream ( _not Sherlock_ , was all John could think, _it isn’t him_ ) and a huff of annoyance ( _ah, well, yes, **that** was Sherlock_ ).

John crouched, making himself a small target, aimed and yelled: “Drop the gun!” in fair warning.

Wankey just snarled “ ** _What the buggering fuck_**??” and fired in John’s direction, the shot going wide and high as John darted aside. Wankey took the opportunity to overturn a table and drop behind it.

The crash of stacked chairs falling over followed, and a small figure fled towards the venue door. A child, running hell for leather for the exit. Wankey fired at the kid but again, the shot was wide.

 _Not so easy to shoot straight in poor light is it, you prick?_ John thought, tamping down his rage. _Shooting at kids, too. You fucker._

John’s next bullet ploughed a furrow in the edge of the overturned table, zinging past the manager’s head.  Sharpshooting was also harder under fire and encumbered with the Gibson. While John yanked the cable out of the end of his guitar to free up some movement, Wankey turned the gun in his direction and pulled the trigger as John leapt aside. The bullet gouged into now vacated space on the stage floor.

Then Wankey started firing into the wings again, where Sherlock’s voice had last been heard shouting at the boy: “You idiot, Granger, get down!”

John still had no time or space to remove his guitar or even to find cover – the amplifier at the side of the stage was only half John’s height and didn’t offer much shelter. Instead, he got a bead on Wankey – only to find himself looking down the snub nose of the gun getting a bead on him.

“Over here, you malodorous cretin!” To John’s horror, Sherlock leapt out of the wings, waving his arms in that voluminous coat to make a huge, flappy, unmistakable, _fuck-brained_ target. Wankey wheeled toward him, squeezing the trigger as Sherlock began to whirl into the shadows once more.

Wankey’s first shot went wide.

John fired as he ran, flinging himself between Wankey and his new target. His first bullet slammed low into the table top as the guitar spoiled his aim.

Wankey’s second shot was wide too, but closer, homing in on the shadow in the darkness. He pulled the trigger a third time.

John’s second shot winged the manager in the shoulder, just as Wankey’s third bullet slammed into his gut, throwing him into a backwards stagger.

Sherlock yelled a panicked syllable. A name. John wasn’t sure. His ears were ringing and his gut hurt. _Fuck. **Fuck** it hurt_.

But Wankey was coming out from behind the table, gun raised ( _aimed at Sherlock, behind them_ ) shoulder furrowed and bleeding, and John, still somehow on his feet, lurched at him again. The guitar strap gave way, and he didn’t know where his gun had gone, so John seized the neck of the guitar as it slipped and hefted the instrument ( ** _Fuck_** _that hurt_ ) to swing at Wankey. He collected the wounded man in the shoulder, eliciting a howl of agony, forcing Wankey to drop the gun, and breaking the guitar into pieces.

John continued to surge forward, momentum and rage carrying him on. His hands were around Wankey’s throat and they both crashed to the floor. John landed, knees in Wankey’s groin and belly, and throttled the _utterly pukifying wankturd fucking little shitbag_ for all he was worth. Then the manager’s groping hand found a piece of fret board, which he smashed repeatedly against John’s face.

John, snarling, banged Wankey’s head on the floorboards four times until the bastard dropped the fret board, then twice more for good measure until Wankey stopped cursing and started groaning.

Then John toppled to one side and sprawled flat on his back, feeling anxiously for the burning wound in his abdomen. He hissed in pain as his fingers encountered the tender, bleeding flesh. _**Fuck**. That. Hurts. _ thought John and _Could be worse, I could be dead already. Sherlock could be dead._

That’s when John noticed Sherlock between him and the supine manager, snatching Wankey’s wrists up and winding guitar strings around them, pinioning the man. Sherlock was chanting _John!_ in an urgent voice, staring at him in wide-eyed distress as he ensured Wankey was incapacitated, and from time to time yelling over his shoulder for Granger.

John grunted in pain leavened by the knowledge the Sherlock was fine – _he’s fine, he’s alive, thank you God, thank you, thank you_ –  and brought his fingers up to inspect the blood smeared on them.

He poked again at the injury, which, as much as it hurt, wasn’t nearly so painful, or as deep or as messy as it should have been, and craned his neck to see.

And he began to laugh.

“John. John! Stop that. Stop it.”

John looked up at Sherlock’s blanched, shocked face, and giggled harder. “S’okay. I’m okay.”

“You are not…”

“Tie the motherfucker up, Sherlock, before I have to beat the shit out of him again.”

“Granger is doing that,” said Sherlock crossly. John glanced across to see the child – a young boy, older than his slight physique would indicate – winding guitar strings from the broken guitar around Wankey’s ankles while the manager surfaced from the moaning to threaten all kinds of retribution. Granger poked his tongue out at the man.

Sherlock dropped to his knees to inspect the damage to John’s stomach.

“Don’t touch!” warned John, then hissed as Sherlock lifted his shirt to reveal the injury. A deep cut. Bits of guitar metal and enamel were embedded in the wound, but it didn’t seem to have perforated anything vital. No bullet, either. That had ricocheted off the instrument and away into the wall.

John giggled again. “Rock and roll saved my life.”

“It’s not funny, John.”

“Fuck yeah, it is.”

“You have a head wound.”

John reached up to feel his forehead, which felt like it had been grated. Well, it had, he supposed. With a fret board. There was a new definition of _shredding_ , he decided, and started giggling again. “Rock and roll, Sherlock. Saved my goddamned life.”

“John. No.”

The door burst open but when Sherlock only looked annoyed, John figured that Lestrade had finally shown up in response to the text John had sent before coming in fifteen minutes ago. 

“Shit, what have you two been doing now?”

John looked up to see Greg looking down at him, concerned and irritated in equal parts.

“Lousy timing, Greg,” said John, grinning like a lunatic.

“Is the ambulance here?” Sherlock demanded, “John needs stitches.”

“Didja hear, Greg? Rock’n’roll saved my life.”

“And a brain scan. He has a head injury. He keeps making that joke, and it isn’t funny.”

“I can see his face looks like it was used to play a heavy metal solo on a steel guitar.”

“You should see the other guy,” said John, and giggled again.

 “I’ve seen the other guy. Al Wankey. Smuggler of drugs, antiques and really shitty people, and all round arsehole. Nice work. Pity you had to stop him with your face. And your middle aged spread.” Greg had bent to inspect the wound.

“Bastard,” said John genially. He giggled again. “Fuck me. Saved by rock’n’roll.”

“Stop it!” Sherlock snarled, “this isn’t funny, John. You _keep_ _making that joke_ and _it isn’t funny_.”

“Hey, hey, hey…” John reached for Sherlock’s arms, patting at him soothingly, “It’s okay. We’re all okay.”

“We are _not_ okay. _You_ are not okay, you absolute _idiot_ ,” Sherlock was working up an angry head of incandescent steam, “I don’t know why I expect better from you. You are meant to be less of a complete moron, less unutterably stupid than everyone else, but you are _worse_. You are the worst kind of dim-witted, thick-skulled incompetent _fucking idiot_ I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. You are…”

“You fucking **arse** ,” John yelled back from the floor, good humour vanishing as his own ire rose, “What was I meant to do, let him _shoot_ you? And let’s talk about incompetent fucking idiots, shall we? Jumping out of cover and waving at a gunman? Where was your neon sign with the fucking target painted on? Because it was all you fucking needed to finish the job, you absolutely, unmitigated, fuckwitted fucking fucktarding fucker!”

Lestrade knelt there, watching the pair of them with surprise. He rose and backed off slightly, feeling oddly both unsafe and intrusive in that loaded crossfire.

“He was _aiming for you,_ John!”

“That was the idea, dickhead, so that he wouldn’t _shoot you_!”

“There was no need for you to get in the line of fire. It was _under control_.”

“It was not _under fucking control_!” John’s hands shot up to grab the lapels of Sherlock’s coat and in his rage he hauled Sherlock down close to him. Sherlock stumbled and had to brace himself so as not to sprawl over John’s wounded stomach.

Nose to nose, snarling ferociously into his friend’s face, John spat out: “ _You stupid bastard_. I went to your funeral once. I’m not doing it again, do you hear me? _I am not ever doing that again._ ”

Sherlock, hovering over him and preparing a snarling rejoinder, froze. His breathing went from enraged panting to absolute stillness as he held it, shocked at the ferocity in John’s eyes, and at the meaning of his words.

“John,” he breathed out at last, “You…”

“No. _No no no_. You _idiot._ Don’t you _get_ it yet? I love Mary like she’s the other half of my heart. But _you_. You’re not just my best friend. You… you’re…”

And for that moment, John struggled with everything in his dual nature. Caring yet secretive. Outgoing yet self-contained. The healer who killed. The steady man who sought adventure. The follower who could lead. The one with trust issues who’d become so quickly loyal. Ordinary yet decidedly not. The man who loved with everything he was but never said the words.

But his more-than-best-friend was leaning over him, with that _look_ on his face, like Sherlock was only just now remembering what he’d done, what he’d chosen, when he stepped off that rooftop. Like he was realising afresh that, however necessary he’d thought it at the time, he wasn’t the only one who had paid a price for that choice. 

John drew a ragged breath and finally said it, not in music, not in deeds, but in words. For the first time with Sherlock, just the words that needed saying.

“I love you like you’re the other half of my _soul_ , you goddamned idiot, and I’m _not burying you again_. Not before we’re ancient and wrinkled and desiccated and two hundred years old. And not even then. I love you. I am not burying you again, do you hear me?”

“I hear you.”

Sherlock raised a hand to press it over John’s, still clutched in his lapels. He leaned down to press his forehead against John’s, and said again, soft as a sigh, strong as a mountain. “I hear you.”

Breath slow but shaking, Sherlock stayed there, pressed close, and wrapped one hand over the crown of John’s head, and placed the other over John’s heart.

With a breath that sounded like a swallowed sob, John let go of Sherlock’s coat to lace their fingers together on his chest. The other hand he reached up to wrap around Sherlock’s skull and hold him still. That’s how they stayed for a while, letting their breathing bank back to calmness. Sharing air, the proof that the other yet lived.

Greg Lestrade watched too, afraid to move, not wanting to draw their attention to the unintended witness to this moment.

“But I’m not going to your funeral either,” said Sherlock at last, voice ragged, “I worked too hard to keep you from it the first time.”

“I’m very hard to kill,” said John, attempting levity, trying to draw back from the edge of the terror he had fought all day, “I died twice before, you know. Once in the field. Once on the table.”

“Don’t…”

“And here I am. With seven lives left, I’m pretty sure. Well. Maybe six now.”

“It’s not funny, John. Don’t make jokes.”

“No. It’s not funny.  But.” John squeezed Sherlock’s hand on his chest; the fingers around Sherlock’s skull stroked through the curls in a reassuring pat. A giggle bubbled out of him again. “Here we are, you mad bastard. Both still alive. The odds of it, eh? The fucking miracle of it.”

“Why do you keep laughing, John?” Sherlock was downright querulous now. Normally they shared the joke, but he just wasn’t getting it this time.

John sobered again. "I’m not allowed to do the other thing,” he said, “Not now Greg’s here.” At Sherlock’s annoyed look, he continued. “Beating that bastard to death for even _thinking_ about touching you. Or just sitting down and howling like a banshee because I nearly lost you again. So. You know. Laughing like a lunatic is my only other option."

“Oh well. That makes sense, then.” Sherlock relaxed at last, and sat back. He kept his hand twined in John’s on his chest, preventing John from rising. Not that John was in the mood to move and bring that vicious biting pain back into his life.

Instead, John sighed as he looked up at Sherlock. “You have to understand this, Sherlock: I'm never leaving you undefended again. It's just one of those facts of life you’ll have to get used to. Like the Earth revolving around the sun. You don't have to know or care. It's just the way it is.”

“You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

“Not if there’s half a chance of annoying the fuck out of you, no.”

“Idiot,” but it was said affectionately this time.

“Look who’s talking,” spoken in reply with unreasonable fondness.

Between them, they continued to ignore Lestrade. Greg was relieved when a paramedic finally showed up and he could leave the two glorious madmen to be glorious and mad together in the back of an ambulance while he did the less glorious work of dealing with Wankey and Granger and how to explain the former’s graze injury. John and his bloody gun. Again. Not that he’d been able to spot it. Sherlock had probably scooped it up and stuck it in that ridiculous coat of his. Good thing Mycroft had backdated paperwork to make it a legally licenced and held weapon.

*

John was lucky. Nothing had perforated his stomach lining or intestines. Once the pieces of Gibson shrapnel had been removed, he had a few stitches, some painkillers and obvious advice that he would be bruised and sore for a few days and to take it easy. His face was likewise a mottled collection of bruises and scrapes.

That evening at Baker Street, John flopped onto the sofa and complained bitterly about the untimely death of his second favourite electric guitar.

“Stop whining,” Sherlock told him peremptorily, “As you insisted on pointing out earlier, that guitar saved your life.”

John snorted his opinion of that reminder, then hissed at the twinge of pain the movement elicited. “I said rock and roll saved my life,” he corrected, then sighed and tried to get comfortable. “I know you’ll probably think this is sentimental hogwash, but music has done that, you know. Saved me. Well, sort of. Christ knows what I would have done with myself as a kid if I hadn’t thrown myself into music. It was more constructive than getting into bar fights every Friday night, anyway.”

When Sherlock made no reply, John turned his head to see Sherlock contemplating the bandage wrapped around John’s mid-section.

“Sherlock?”

“They can you know. Save your life,” said Sherlock suddenly.

“What?”

“Songs. Can save your life. Yours saved mine. When you and Mrs Hudson… sang to me.” He was clearly uncomfortable, though with the subject matter or with the memory, it wasn’t clear. Sherlock peered at the bandage more intensely before lifting his gaze to meet John’s. “I would dismiss it as sentimental hogwash, except that in a fundamental way, it did. The wound was deep and wouldn’t stop bleeding. And I was exhausted, at the very end of my rope. I hadn’t slept in days, or eaten in longer. I… wasn’t sure I would see the morning. I called here that night to hear your voices one more time. And the two of you sang to me. And I swore I would live. That I would get home. So I found some duct tape to close the wounds, then crawled to the street where a very helpful young man walking his Pekingese dog found me and took me to a hospital, no questions asked. I suppose technically he saved my life, but I would never have made it to the street for him to find me without the impetus of that song. Your voices.”

Sherlock closed his eyes and visibly mastered his emotions. When he opened his eyes again, he was once more contained and in control. “Once I had a transfusion, stitches and the antibiotics, I checked myself out, finished my work, and I came home.”

Of course it wasn’t as simple as that. And yet it was.

John always knew that night had been significant. He’d never known how much, though. He didn’t know what to say. Instead, he held a hand out. Sherlock took it and sank down to the floor beside the sofa. He sat with his back to the sofa, spine resting against John’s thigh, while he held John’s hand against his throat, moving so that John’s fingers were pressed against his pulse point. _Alive. See?_

“Sometimes...,” Sherlock said, voice soft, the iron control relaxing again, “Those songs were all that kept me going. They were the only way to know you were still safe here in London. Still alive, untouched by Moriarty’s empire.”

John’s fingers brushed against Sherlock’s throat, soothingly, then came to rest against his clavicle. “It was like that for us too. Those weeks you couldn’t call? Dying was easier.”

“It’s agreed then,” said Sherlock, looking back at John at last, “No funerals. Until we are desiccated old men of two hundred.”

“And not even then.”

“And not even then,” Sherlock agreed, and wondered if Mycroft knew of anything going on at Baskerville that would help them to keep the promise. Perhaps he would ask in the morning.

They were asleep like that, John on the sofa, Sherlock on the floor beside him, head pillowed on John’s thigh, when Mrs Hudson came up to see why the light was still on yet it was so quiet. She considered waking them, but they looked so peaceful, so vulnerable, that she decided instead to simply drape blankets over them.

Sherlock awoke anyway. He blinked sleepily at her. “I’ll get him to bed,” he said. John snorted, grunted and fell back into quiet slumber.

“Yourself too, dear.”

“Of course.”

She went to pat his shoulder and he took her hand, so small and delicate in his large, scarred one. He kissed the soft skin of her knuckles and pressed them to his cheek.

“Did I ever thank you?”

“No.” But she said it with an indulgent smile.

“Thank you, Mrs Hudson.”

She didn’t even ask what he was thanking her for. She just smiled and bent to kiss his forehead.  “You’re welcome, Sherlock.”

He released her hand and waited until she’d gone before rising. He woke John sufficiently to guide the sore and sleep-cranky doctor to Sherlock’s own room, which was easier to reach, and put him to bed, covers drawn over his shoulders. John sank gratefully into the mattress and was promptly asleep again.

Sherlock sat on a chair by the window, fingers steepled under his chin, and contemplated for the next few hours the unmistakable music to his ears of the miracle of John Watson, alive against all the odds, breathing and snuffling and sighing in his sleep.


End file.
